


Legacies Abroad

by DystopianUtahraptor



Series: Babylon Thrum [1]
Category: Slugterra
Genre: Anthology, CanonxOC, Drabbles, F/M, Gen, Microdrabbles, Minidrabbles, Outland Reach, collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 20,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3760912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DystopianUtahraptor/pseuds/DystopianUtahraptor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The documented travels of a group of four legacy-warriors known only as The Horsemen, come from the farthest corners of the Outland Reach into the 99 Caverns in search of their missing predecessors.</p><p>-Part of the Babylon Thrum Continuity-</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Entrance

**Author's Note:**

> Pardon the incredibly short opening here; this is just introductory. The rest get steadily longer up to the microdrabble compilations.
> 
> I do take Pairing/Prompts for microdrabbles; they are usually posted en masse, in installments. Some are left free due to subject.
> 
> Slugterra and all affiliated is Nerd Corps  
> The Horsemen, Babel, and the development of the Outland Reach are mine  
> Other OCs mentioned are their respective owners

Lumino Ore, light dappled through tree canopies rustling with a heated breeze, a blessing and a curse if not taken aback by the beauty of the place.

The Pit thrums, a warm subsonic humming to a wordless tune, rhythm beat out in the roaring of twin cascades above. Corridors carved out of the rocky walls, leading to lit streets of houses, finely-clad people of mixed origin moving to and fro; in groups or alone.

The islands, suspended and anchored over the abyss, connected with a series of bridges, landscaped with rich-green grasses and towering trees, spots of vibrant color from flowers of tropical origin, patches broken only by the addition of quaint buildings along lamp-lit roads. Crystal water flows, directed by human hand, from island to island, pouring over the sides.

Friendly folk, always with a kind word and 'good day', always willing to point in the correct direction or to somewhere new. Colorful faces, little Fandangos, poking out from trees and foliage to greet those who pass.

It is hard to believe a tropical paradise can be hidden away within a magnet.


	2. Homesick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After so many months on the road, War and Ruin are starting to miss home.

The sound of rushing water was always in her ears, even when she slept. Dredging mental imagery of the cascades of home, the drains that fell into carved pools to drain downwards and help keep terra firma green and flush.

Every time she heard it trickling, War felt homesick for the fresh clean air, the echo of torrential downpour across the enclosed walls, humming out the drone of life in the caverns. A backbeat, something to sync the heart and breath to.

_Life._

The higher caverns rarely sported such wonders, such heavy sound. Ruin, once so perturbed by the constant noise that conducted everything in his first washing down into the irrigation ditches, had even started to show signs of missing it. She would catch the little Negashade also looking longingly at small water features, both man-made and natural, as they passed. Once or twice, she found him on the banks of such, reaching little arm toward it. A feat, to be sure, for such a small guy who had been terrified of water as a whole for so long outside hydration purposes. He was getting less and less afraid of it lately; she caught him bathing in a trickle once. When he gave her a sheepish look as though he had not wanted to be caught, she let him to it and congratulated him on passing such a big hurdle in his little life. She never knew Negashades glowed along those pretty light-blue markings until that point, when he offered up the biggest 'smile' she was sure he could muster to mimic the faint pulse in those swirls and dots. Learning something new every day…

 _Bucephalus_  was trudging on beneath her now, her mind filled with the mechanical drone of joints and pulleys, shocks and suspensions. Ruin was curled up against the crook of her neck, napping, as she leaned against the warhorse-mech's broad and elegantly-sloping neck. The mechanized stallion would follow the others; his GPS system was synced to Death's  _Ianmo_  at the head-point, and would alert her to rough terrain later.

Steady sway, rhythmic whirring and clunking beneath. Eyes closed, head resting on her lower arms. Somewhere, midst the metallic clunking and droning, came another noise. Soothing, low-key roar, something she subconsciously synced her breathing and heart-rate to.

_Water._


	3. Reverence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cycling process to be a Horseman is not one taken lightly...

Being a Horseman begins before conception.  
  
You carry the blood of generations of your title. The men and women who have been who you will become since the first of your settlers of Babel arrived from the Surface through the Exits. You are expected to be who you have been through ages past before you have even developed your own will. This expectation carries to those you are to serve, and the whole of the Eastern Wall will celebrate your arrival and your first breaths outside the womb.  
  
You are fed the propaganda of being who you will be so it is set early, fleeting images of the colors of your title, stories and exploits of those who came before. And above all, the heritage you are to preserve. You do not learn the languages of the Babelan folk, but that which your parents feed you and that which your ancestors spoke. You will not be trained in other tongues for a decade or more to come. With this tactic, you are effectively isolated from all but your families, and then only the other three families. Covet the name you were born to, for it will be replaced soon enough.  
  
Your fate takes root when you can walk a continuous line, toddling aside. In some, this is at the age of two years, almost three. Training begins, at latest, five; some are late bloomers, so to speak. You are taught to stand, taught to walk, taught to hold yourself as a child four times your age might. You are taught that to fall is wrong, to stumble is wrong. You are taught that no mistakes are tolerated. You will see your own blood run from your body before you are four. You will blister and seep. You will cry, only to be taught that crying is weakness and weakness is wrong.  
  
You will be a soldier proper before you turn five, locked emotions in a bottle and straightened back with shoulders squared, head held loft with Babelan pride.  
You will serve without knowing any better, any rebellion stripped from you before you were born.  
  
Training is rigorous and you will tire day in and day out. If you are injured, you will continue. Handicaps are weakness and weakness is wrong. You will rise at the Lumino brightening, you will rest when it dims. There is no in-between, you have no days to yourself. You will be taught physical and mental conditioning long before combat is even hinted. Your education is the best to offer, as it will be what sharpens the mind and accelerates the ability to cope with sudden changes and counter them appropriately.  
  
You are ten when combat starts, mingling with linguistics. You learn first the languages of your companions, committing them to memory with beginning posturing and stances. Babelan tongues follow when beginning maneuvers are employed.   
  
You are twelve when name-conditioning begins, forcing you to forget your birth name. Your identity will be snuffed out with that of your past selves, the incarnations of your ancestors in the title you will assume. You will barely remember the name you were given.  
  
Physical combat changes before you turn fourteen, incorporating various extensions and weaponry with advancing maneuvers for basic close-quarters. This is where you will learn how to Sling, where the majority of the populace outside your native cavern of Babel excels. Your methods are primitive in comparison to the rest of Slugterra, but handling the slings will take more skill. Learning how to counter an aggressive Slinger when you cannot properly duel back is also imperative, defensive measures employed and taught until both offense and defense are little more than muscle memory.  
  
When you turn eighteen, practices will lessen in frequency. You will follow your predecessors, shadow their every trek and conflict. Combat only goes so far if you do not experience it raw. Reflexes will only set if you feel it unchoreographed. You learn more than skirmish at this stage.  
  
Your next decade is the final leg of your journey, where you learn your jurisdiction, the Eastern Wall. You live in and dispatch from Babel, but the Eastern Wall is yours. Each cavern, each city-state. Every inch, you will learn. Customs, cultures, political sway. Your own introductions to them are included. They will not know your name, they will only know your title, as you have come to only answer to your title. You are no longer individual, you will not respond to that which made you different. You are little more than a familiar tradition to those you will serve.  
  
You are twenty-six when you are measured for your uniform, the only thing that will be custom to your tastes. You will design it, using only the colors set into you since infancy. You will wear this uniform before you wear the wealth of Babel. You will reach for it day after day like a lifeline and it will be how others identify you with your title.  
  
You are twenty-eight when the title passes. The Eastern Wall will celebrate. Babel will celebrate. The Council oversees the passing, allowing your predecessor and parent to present the customary mask of your title to you, from them. You will wear the mask with pride. Your mask is the face of your ancestors, the generations before. You are your mask and nothing more to those you serve. The Faravahar is placed, ignition to the heirloom warhorses passed, and you and yours are presented to the public as the new Legacy, a new generation to take the place of the old.   
  
You will keep the peace along the Eastern Wall until you bear an heir within the same time-frame of your Legacy also producing. The process will begin again.  
  
_You are reverent._  
_You are eternal._  
**You are Horsemen.**


	4. Cliche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When War's Negashade, Ruin, approaches him, Thaddius gets the feeling something is wrong.

Something was not right with this. Enough to make Thaddius pause mid-proposition to look down at the muted midnight-blue Slug that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, carefully inching forward with antennae lowered.  
  
Typical disgust for the creatures was replaced with surprise. In general, Slugs avoided the man altogether. This set off several warning bells, and not because Thaddius Blakk was being approached by a Slug. It was what the Slug was.  
  
Negashades were rare enough, but this one seemed familiar somehow. Green eyes narrowed in thought. He only knew two people who had Negashades.  
  
One was long-dead and had taken hers with her. He had seen to that, himself. This couldn’t be hers.  
  
It was the almost timid demeanor that gave this one away. What was its name? Something devious, most uncharacteristic of the little beast itself…  
  
Somewhere behind his right shoulder, Maurice coughed discreetly. “…Doctor?”  
  
It was just enough to cause the industrialist to look briefly at his assistant. “Can you remember the name she gave the Negashade?”  
  
For a moment, confusion spread on the other’s features before it caught up with him. As Thaddius had kept his voice low in volume, just between them, he responded in kind as soon as he realized the context of the question. “Ah … I think it was ‘Ruin’, Sir.”  
  
There was a small squeak of acceptance from the Negashade, still resting all four limbs to the ground and looking up with antennae pulled further back.  
  
"Ruin. Of course, a name most unbecoming of the little monster." Small sneer twitched upward on Thaddius’ face at the recognition. One thing did plague at the back of his mind though; if Ruin was here, where was War? Rarely was the oddity of a woman far from her precious little Slug and she was nowhere to be seen, not even a wisp of that untamed ebon mane or glimpse of those abyssal blue eyes.  
  
It was in that moment that he put the two together. Ruin’s approach, the distinct missing of its favored perch. Even now, the small squeaks and trills after being acknowledged were beginning to sound like a call for assistance.  
  
"…It appears something has come up unexpectedly. My associate will have to carry on in my stead. I do hope you’ll show him the same apt attentions you have given me thus far…" There was venom in that voice, accompanied by an almost sinister smirking smile. A glance downward to where the Negashade had appeared showed empty space. That explained the sudden silence… No doubt, Ruin would show up as soon as it was needed.  
  
Quick glance was given around the area, receiving small, discreet nods from various goons encircling the rapt audience. So long as they stayed in place, the deal was sure to go through. Attention turned to Maurice as he began passed him. “Thrill them, if you would. Sell it. I will send you coordinates later on where to send the Express.”  
  
Maurice responded with a nod as he moved forward to take his place. “Yes, Sir.”  
  
With Maurice’s voice booming out the planned propositional piece behind him, Thaddius concentrated his attention elsewhere. Namely, the once-missing Negashade laying as close as it could get against the bull’s head of his TH1-DR. He regarded it with the same amount of disgust as before, narrowing his eyes at it as he approached.  
  
"Don’t get used to this. I wouldn’t hesitate to  _Ghoul_  you otherwise.” was hissed at the little creature through grit teeth, causing it to shrink closer to the metal surface under it. “In the meantime, make absolutely certain that you do not disappoint me. Else you still might be.”  
  
It took less than a minute to mount the hulking machine, settle onto the seat, and turn the ignition. The mech roared to life, the start-up check lighting the center console first before displaying various system monitors. Green eyes looked from the console to Ruin, peering up from the crest of the bull’s head before crawling up to rest on its neck, just out of reach. Smart creature…  
  
"Show me."  
  
Though short, the message was clear. The Negashade picked it up immediately and looked around, antennae sticking up briefly. Before long, it anchored itself to the metal plate beneath it, antennae flattening to its head, and trilled, pointing with a stubby arm in one direction. The engine roared, the TH1-DR guided out of the area and into the main cavern before picking up speed. A dusty barren with little to no actual resources of use, it did offer a considerably shorter route to a cavern on the opposite side that was home to one of the mines and refineries owned by Blakk Industries. If this deal went through, he would be able to lay down another set of tracks through the cavern and cut eight hours off the Slugterranean Express’ journeys, to and from.  
  
Ruin changed direction, pointed its little face to the left. Thaddius took the cue, turning the mech to change accordingly, to which the Slug faced forward again for some time. The ride itself was silent, save for the sound of the bull-mech roaring its way out of the small town into the wastes beyond. The Negashade proved unobtrusively useful, much to his chagrin of having to rely on it to begin with. Ruin did know what it was doing and where it was going, leading him by way of pointing its face in various directions until he was taking the path indicated. The way was smooth, up until the yawning maw of one of many canyons littering the area rose up in front of him.  
  
He slowed to a stop just outside of it, looking to the Negashade still perched on the ridge of his mech’s neck. The look he gave it was none too kind. “Do you take me for a fool, you little  _wretch_.”  
  
Paranoia had bubbled just slightly to the surface, but it was rightly justified; Thaddius was quite well-aware of his standing with many people, most especially his current with those in this particular cavern. The high rock walls on either side of the path ahead could hide almost anyone or anything and he would rather not be caught by surprise. That was inevitable, however, when Ruin lost its usual demeanor and proceeded to sound off a series of squawks and squalls he could only take as being yelled at.  
  
It did not last long, the shock evident on his face at the Slug’s sudden change shifting fluidly to nothing short of a snarling glare. “If she weren’t so fond of you…”  
  
He didn’t have to finish it. The spitting venom in just the spoken piece immediately silenced the Negashade into its usual cower. It slid from its perch to the ground before proceeding ahead into the constricting confines of the canyon. Green eyes scanned the high walls carefully, following along the top ridges as far as he could in an attempt to spot anything out of place. Any cuts or landfalls that might have been man-made, any wisp of another human, any unusual noises. All that met him was smooth rock, a faint whistling breeze close to the ground, and the sound of a Slug squawking away further ahead. Ruin, no doubt, complaining about its current lot in life.  
  
A brief glance to his right hip assured him that his Blaster was where it should be and always had been, right within range in case he may need it for any reason. With a final sweep of the area to make absolutely sure nothing was amiss, he urged the bull-mech beneath him between the towering rock walls. The ambiance was drowned out with the rattling engine, Thaddius keeping tabs everywhere above, around, and behind him. He wanted absolutely no surprises. After rounding a corner further into the canyon, the path widened a bit and a glint of metal against the far wall caught his eye. Immediately, his hand moved, hovering close to his Blaster as a precaution before he saw the ornately-embossed plating, enamel-black with embellishing gold and red swirling motifs along the edges and seams.  
  
The antique warhorse-mech he recognized as  _Bucephalus_  was resting just off the path with a dent and visible burning in the black plating on one shoulder and corresponding side that was undoubtedly detrimental to movement, its eyes dim as opposed to the usual golden glow. Even switched off, the neck was straight, the head canted slightly downward, giving off a sort of prideful intimidation. They did not make the horse-mechs like that anymore, that much was obvious. A flash of blue at the horse’s right flank caught his attention, eyes spotting Ruin bounding down with an audible huff to the ground.  
  
Coming to a full stop next to the STL-1 and making certain the location was as secure as it had proven so far, he pulled free a small hand-held device, opened a map of the area on it, and scrolled until he found the nearest designated set of Express tracks. At least a half hour out at the closest point, here was to hoping she was not in any critical condition. With a tap, coordinates were set for the designated pick up, sent with a second tap. A third was set to his current location. If  _Bucephalus_  was unable to move, it would have to be picked up and relocated. A quick look over the area on the map was given to distinguish all possible routes to the pick-up point before the pad was replaced in its designated spot, the TH1-DR powered down before he dismounted.  
  
Almost immediately, something near his foot caught his attention. A thick sliver of hard ceramic, white save for a polished red edge on one side. His brow knit, bending down toward it. He paused halfway, head turning slightly when he caught sight of a trail. The ground here was softer, a drag-wake prominent from the warhorse around the next corner, pocked in some places with darker spots against the pale soil. Ruin was already on its way around the corner, chittering and squeaking.  
  
Concern was beginning to rise, worry now for her well-being once he recognized the rusty discoloration of the spots, fueling his progression after the Negashade. The uncertainty of what he might find caused a small yet noticeable tightening in his chest until a short bout of familiar melodic laughter sounded. It was followed closely by, “Villkommen zueruck, Ruin.” It didn’t sound cracked or pained and the knowledge that War was conscious and alert caused him to simultaneously sigh in relief and internally scold himself for thinking otherwise.  
  
"I can tell by your smug little smile you actually found someone close." she continued, a squeak coming from Ruin in response. He could see her now, just enough to tell she was rubbing the Negashade’s head with a fingertip between its antennae and that she was carefully keeping her lower legs balanced on the braces’ heel supports. "So who ist mein rescuer, mein little paige?"  
  
The opportunity for proper introduction arose and he took it, back straightening as he fully rounded the corner. “You know it is a sad day when Thaddius Blakk takes orders from a Slug.” Her head turned, fluidly and without a start, black-blue eyes giving him knowing acknowledgement. She had known he was there the entire time, just was unsure of who he was until he had announced himself. “I never pictured you the ‘damsel-in-distress’ type, my dear. Is this something new you are trying for?”  
  
Her lips thinned a bit at his teasings, placing Ruin on her shoulder. “Stuff it. I broke somet’ing.” There was a pause, an almost disgruntled expression crossing her face as her eyes lowered off to one side. “…A couple of somet’ings.”  
  
He bent down next to her, fingers of his right hand lifting under her chin so that their eyes were level, green to blue. “It explains why you are favoring your ankles…” He trailed off, running his left index finger along a trail of dried blood up one side of her face to a healing cut above the brow. “I do not think I would have known you were here if it hadn’t been for your Negashade.”  
  
Quirk of her lips turning up. “Honestly, given who followed him, I’m surprised Ruin came back to me in ze same condition as ven he left.”  
  
"To be perfectly blunt with you, I rather like my skin and head attached and in one piece." A quick inspection of her showed the mask resting at the crown of her head was cracked, the sliver he had found near the horse-mech from the red painted spot in the forehead. She had the cut over her brow on top of her ankles rebroken. There were likely other cuts and bruises beneath clothing and armor that weren’t shown at the moment. "What exactly happened?"  
  
She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t really know. Vas scouting ahead, sudden cloud of red und ze ground dropped out from under me, I left Bucephalus, landed flat on somet’ing. Felt ankles snap, fell forvard, hit mein head, hit ze ground, told Ruin to find help, pulled meinself under cover. I vasn’t sure if zey’d come back to try to finish ze job, but I vasn’t going to be a sitting duck for it.”  
  
There was a twitch in one corner of his mouth, a prominent snarl forming. Someone had caused her harm, with intention of doing so. It set off a chain reaction internally, a holocaust to be contained in little more than a twitch. It would be bad to lose composure here. “Did you happen to see who it was that opened fire?”  
  
The question had come out with more malevolence than he had intended, saturating the air enough to make Ruin shrink back and hide among her loose ebon mane. It did not make War back down, her brow furrowing as she shook her head in response.  
  
"It happened so fast, I didn’t even catch a glimpse before I vas falling. Ze only t’ing on mein mind at zat point vas to correct und redirect ze fall so I could sustain as little damage as possible."  
  
He let go of her chin, directing his gaze to her ankles. “There is still damage done.”  
  
She offered him a sheepish smile in return. There was a light strain across her face with it, no doubt trying to hold in how much physical pain she was feeling in that moment. “Maybe zey’ll heal right zis time.”  
  
Her attempt at lightening the mood seemed to work, a small quirk of one corner of his lips given to reassure her. Still, there was a storm brewing beneath the surface, a resolution to find closure to the situation, one way or the other. He had to keep it contained, for the moment. There were still priorities to attend.  
  
Green eyes snapped back up to her blue. “You can be moved, yes?”  
  
Her hands moved, checking the braces, before looking back to him. “Ja. I should be fine to move, so long as zey don’t bend und I don’t put any veight on zem. Tightened ze support bands earlier, so zey should remain stationary.”  
  
He gave a single nod of understanding, extending an arm behind her. “Lean back, if you would.”  
  
She was practiced in this, likely from the accident that had broken her to begin with. Slender body leaned back against his supporting arm, legs lifting the braces carefully off the ground. He moved fluidly, one motion to sweep her up and hold her supported at back and knees, one arm of hers wrapping about his broad shoulders as extra support. Without moving his upper body too much, save minute changes to keep balance, he rose to stand. His grip shifted to better situate her weight against him before starting off back toward his mecha-beast.  
  
After a moment of silence, she placed her head against his shoulder, her free hand against his chest. “T’addius…?”  
  
He tilted his head to look down at her. Realizing she likely couldn’t see the acknowledgement through the chin-edge of the cracked mask, he settled instead for a low questioning rumble, something she would feel through her hand.  
  
She took the cue, though he could see her lips draw themselves into a thin line before she responded. “I’m sorry…”  
  
What  _was_  it with her and the Negashade today? Both had managed to draw that same twinge of confusion out of him.  
  
Before he had a chance to reply, she continued. “I pulled you avay from somet’ing important, didn’t I.”  
  
Low rolling chuckle escaped him at that. Was this what she was worried about? “It’s nothing Maurice cannot handle, I can assure.”  
  
"I still pulled you avay from somet’ing important to save mein ass." she huffed, fingers against his chest curling in a show of sudden emotional instability. "You are using resources you shouldn’t, for me. I’m sorry."  
  
Again, he attempted to reassure her with that low laugh. “To be perfectly honest, I thought we could use a small element of the cliche in this relationship. Me carrying you out of trouble and the resulting clean-up seems to fill this niche. Besides.” Upon approach to the parked mechs, he placed her at the front of the seat of his before continuing. “If I really thought of you as a burden, my dear, I would not have come at all.”  
  
That drew those thinning lips into a small smile for him, returned to her in full. “I suppose you vouldn’t. Probably haf even caught und Ghouled mein Ruin in retribution.”  
  
"Oh. Now  _there_  is a thought.” He was teasing now, saw the exaggerated scowl on her face at it. She knew it, just as well.  
  
"Zat’s not funny."  
  
Of course, the retort still didn’t stop her from moving against him once he settled in behind her, carefully helping her into a more comfortable position before starting the engine. “Well. I thought it was rather amusing.”  
  
She scoffed at him, hand reaching up to grasp the mask at her crown, pulled it back and down to allow her the ability to look him straight in the eye from below. “Of course _you_  vould. It doesn’t affect you.”  
  
With the systems lit green, he urged the TH1-DR forward at a steady pace, looking down briefly at her with a tsk. “Such an attitude. Your mother would be shocked and ashamed.”  
  
He felt the deadpan in the stony silence that followed more than he saw it creep over her face. “Mein mutter ist  _dead_ , you ass.”  
  
Her retort did little more than draw another rumbling chuckle out of him, though he made no verbal response for some time, leaving the navigation through the remainder of the canyon to silence. It helped him keep a vigilant eye on their surroundings, in the case her fear of the unknown assailant returning proved true.  
  
The high walls petered out into nothing and the tracks for the Express were glinting in the distance when he felt her shift closer to him without agitating her carefully-placed ankles. It was an interesting movement to glimpse, the way the muscles in her thighs did the work and the lower legs remained completely still. A fine display of precision and control. Once she was comfortable and had stopped moving, she began.  
  
It wasn’t too much, small talk. He learned of the progress of the Horsemen across Slugterra, that they had found a lead that lead them off in a completely unexpected direction. About how someone in some cavern or another only remembered the caravan they were chasing because the protective cover had come off one of the carts and the exposed magnet sheets shut down everything in the cavern…  
  
Thaddius merely listened, offering a counterpoint here and there, but kept her talking. He recognized the tactic, quickly. Heard the continued strain in the undertone of her voice. War was proud. It came with the title, the element she personified. Pride kept her from curling in a ball and sobbing in pain. He could barely imagine the amount she could be feeling and though the broken ankles were properly stabilized, the movement of the mech below them both likely caused irritation. The thought merely dredged the anger he had barely tamped down before. When he got his hands on the little wretch that did this…  
  
"So, vat  _vere_  you doing so close?” she asked, punctuating his bloodthirsty musings like a pin in a bubble.  
  
He answered with little more than a half-smile. “ _Industry_ , my dear. Progression, expansion.”  
  
A small smile crept across her face. “Ah. Ze usual.”  
  
He loosed an equally small laugh at that, but before he had a chance to respond properly, the familiar sound of a train’s horn rent the air and resonated around the vast chamber. Green eyes were directed to the tracks again, catching sight of the sleek silver bullet-head of the Slugterranean Express gliding along the tracks towing a single car. The suspension on the Express was considerably better than any mechabeast and would be better for her on the long journey back to the Citadel. The brakes were put on, the engine coasting to a stop right where he had indicated before with a squeal of metal on metal. As soon as the Express had come to a full stop, the door on the side of the car slid open, revealing the stocky frame of Maurice.  
  
"Everything alright, Doctor?" he asked, stepping down to meet the pair halfway. He gave a small nod of greeting to War, who returned it with a slight cant of her head as the mech was braked to a slow stop.  
  
Thaddius dismounted first, offering his arms to her again as she moved and slid back into them with favor to her ankles. “We seem to have had a bit of an … altercation.”  
  
Maurice chuckled a bit, following him into the car. “Isn’t that usually how it is.”  
  
Usually, the bout of humor would have at least drawn something amused out of Thaddius. This one drew nothing short of a seething glare, accompanied by a hissed, “She didn’t start this one.” His companion backed down with a muttered apology, giving him cue to continue. “I do hope there is good news in concerning our visit.”  
  
Seeing he was back in good graces, Maurice delivered the results. “Blakk Industries owns this cavern as of an hour and fifteen minutes ago. The contract was signed and is currently filed appropriately to wait your attention, Sir. We’re maintaining a strong presence while the rails are being laid and a continued presence after to keep the rabble down, so to speak.”  
  
"Expecting trouble, are we?" There was that amused tone, creeping up from seemingly nowhere once War was properly consulted as to where was best to set her down. One of the armchairs in the sitting area of his personal car was her first choice, a good spot to keep weight and strain off the breaks.  
  
"Apparently, there’s a rebel group that frequents this particular cavern who is strongly opposed to … industrial takeover." The taller man looked briefly toward the stricken Prussian as she was placed per her orders across her chosen seat. "My guess is they caught sight of the red and black color scheme and opened fire."  
  
"How astute of you." The snarl was back, though not directed at any one person. He managed to reign it in again, just barely, giving one of her hands an affectionate squeeze. Something reassuring. He was greeted with her eyes finding his, a small nod. Understanding, she remained silent, gave him a soft smile to better reassure him of her position as well. "That is what I needed to hear. Stay with her, Maurice."  
  
Maurice moved out of the way to allow him passage back to the door before following along behind him briefly. “Sir?”  
  
"There should be something in terms of basic painkillers somewhere in here. They will not do much, but it should help in-transit…" As soon as he stepped outside, he turned enough to look over his shoulder. "I will be back to the Citadel on my own time. See that she has everything she needs, what she wants. I have … unfinished business to attend."  
  
The taller nodded. “I’ll keep her safe, Doctor. See you back at the Citadel when you make it back.”  
  
Thaddius gave little more than a nod of acknowledgement before the door closed, turning his attention instead to a pair of his men standing near the engine, awaiting any further orders. “You two. Come with me. We have a loose end that needs to be  _tied up_.”  
  
No longer needing to keep a calm facade, his voice now bubbled raw malevolent venom.


	5. Spar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thaddius is reminded why her name is 'War'.

There was something in the way she moved. The way each step was placed in and out of combat, practiced and eased with years of experience to tell.  
  
Admittedly, when he had first come across the development that War was stricken with otherwise-debilitating weak ankles, Thaddius was surprised that she could move the way she did. Certainly, those braces helped take off the strain, but the biggest shock was how accurate she was with them.  
  
He was discovering just how easily controlled she was with them now, after a request to a sparring match. Figuring that this was a regular thing with her group, he had decided to entertain the notion. You did not keep a weapon and let it become dull or rusted, after all; you had to upkeep it, maintain it. Hone it.  
  
Granted, he had expected her to move quickly, given her background in basic physical combat. He had not quite expected the speed and precision in which she moved. Not at first, at any rate, but he soon adjusted to it. Using the bowed supports of her braces as springs had given him a couple of surprises so far, her brutally-upfront assault style met with nothing short of something equally-aggressive on his side. Everything had been employed, she held nothing back, and her deceptive feinting skills were admittedly superior to his own; one of her strikes using such method had come dangerously close to hitting its mark, grazing close enough that had she been using a knife, she would have cut skin off his nose and cheek.  
  
He had finally recognized the process of the feint, memorized it. By the time she had moved in for it, he presented her with an appropriate counter, moving half a step back to accommodate the distance he would need for it. One hand wrapped about the offending wrist, a small twitch of his own pulling her arm to one side and her closer.  
  
It was probably not a good move in the long run, really, but worth it if to see those dark blue eyes glimmer in obvious surprise at being foiled for once. Such expression caused a low rumbling chuckle to loose from him.  
  
"Now. What has been the lesson this time."  
  
As soon as the words left him, her face changed. Once she made full contact against him, that shock had left her, replaced by that dastardly grin of hers. His mind resorted back to the last thought, that this had been a bad idea, when she answered, melodic accented tones almost sickly sweet.  
  
"Zat if you use ze same tactic a few times, your opponent vill let you in on zeir own." A twist of her captive arm against his thumb, forcing him to let go before she took two steps back and aimed a particularly familiar Blaster at his forehead, a determined-looking Speedstinger already settled and ready in the chamber; where it had come from was a mystery in itself. A quick check at his right hip proved that yes. He was indeed staring down the barrel of his own Blaster. "Und here I t’ought I told you ‘No veapons, especially Blasters’. Rulebreaker…"  
  
Rather than feeling any sort of mortification to being held at point, Thaddius simply remained calm, shifting his head to one side with a quirked smirk beginning across his face, muted green eyes making easy contact with War’s abyssal blue. “You have absolutely no idea how this thing works, do you.”  
  
Already, he could see the exasperation take root over her body, most especially in the comically insulted expression that spread across her face. “It’s a Blaster. How hard can it be to vork a Blaster.”  
  
Ah, the window of opportunity arose and, needless to say, he took it. “Consider, my dear, that my personal Blaster has the capabilities needed to launch not your standard arsenal, but my Ghouls.” There was a hint of a laugh in the last word, carrying over into the next sentence. “I cannot say I know what it would do to yours there, but I am certain it might be fascinating to watch.”  
  
There was a pause. Her knees locked straight, shoulders and jaw squared in thought as a precaution against losing stance should he take the opportunity to attack while her guard was down. She was calculating, the way her eyes glazed slightly showing it all the more. Lips pursed; obviously, his curiosity was not worth anything that could happen to the Speedstinger that was now giving nothing short of a worried look outside the chamber casing at her.  
  
Her arm slacked, lowered the weapon and pulled her arm in. His hand had resumed its location at her wrist, the other already reaching for the commandeered Blaster. “Good girl…”  
  
She relinquished it with no struggle, though snatched the Slug crawling out of the chamber protectively with her free hand. “…You vin zis round…” was admitted quietly.  
  
A small rumble in his chest sounded before he verbally responded proper. “New lesson.” Eye contact was resumed, making absolutely certain there was no mistake in whom he was addressing. “Never. Touch. My Blaster.”  
  
It was accompanied by such being returned to its place, that familiar weight back. With that handled, attention was returned to the ebon-maned beast of a woman he still held captive, free hand reaching out to tilt her head up almost affectionately so as to meet her eyes at level.  
  
"Good match."  
  
Such praises were not heard often, she knew. The usual devilish grin fell to something of a smile matching the fondness behind his own movement. Unspoken, only one of careful eye would see anything even resembling doting.  
  
She pulled her arm from his grip with little resistance. “I suppose I vill see you in un hour, ja?”  
  
His hand pulled back, folding behind his back with the other in his usual authoritative stance, head tilted up just enough. “I look forward to it.”  
  
A rather unconventional farewell as ways split, but these things rarely lasted longer than they needed.


	6. Resuscitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War suffers some form of head trauma and wakes up to see Thaddius' rare show of humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be more details to it, I know. I'll probably rewrite it at some point WITH details, but for now, have some pairing barf.

There was a dull throb, rising steadily into a more prominent notice. The typical subsonic thrum in the back of her mind was soon drowned out by it, escalating to a point it drew a noise out of her. Her voice was raspy, cracked, likely from disuse, a loud ringing beginning to overtake her hearing.  
  
Low voice pierced the gloom, echoing first and pushing the ringing noise back before it focused. “You’re finally waking up. This is good.”  
  
Eyes fluttered open before shutting again, quickly. The light hurt, caused the dull throb to jump to a sharp pain, a small whimper escaping. There was a slight pressure to her forehead, light filtering through her eyelids blocked.  _Sweet relief…_  
  
"You hit your head." That low rumble of a voice, slight lilt of surprised amusement as though he could not believe she could take such a blow. "You’ve been out for two days."  
  
Her brow furrowed, partially against the pain and partially in thought. Either way, it didn’t help much, only made the throbbing headache worsen just slightly. Or maybe that was just the thinking.  
  
Carefully, she let her eyes open again, her vision fuzzy before beginning to focus. She caught sight of the leather on the glove of one hand, shielding her gaze from the harsh light in what she recognized as his private living quarters. At least she knew her memory wasn’t too badly damaged…  
  
Her attention turned down to her right arm, eyes taking note first of the tube running from her lower arm. He followed her gaze, head shifting slowly.  
  
"Ah. Yes. When you did not wake after the first day, I had you put on a drip." His free hand moved, still slow, to the flow control on the tube. "With how much you consumed within the first several hours of being on it, I can honestly say I’m surprised you hadn’t dropped dead from dehydration."  
  
She made a noise, distressed in opposition to the obvious medical attentions, before trying to lift her left hand in an attempt to remove the tube from her. His free hand was brought around, wrapped over her left.  
  
"Don’t try to force yourself to move or speak. Get your bearings properly, we will do another check later." It was very matter-of-fact and solid, meant to dispel any attempt at rebellion, both physical and verbal. "I do have a few matters to attend, but I will be back."  
  
Carefully, the shading hand was pulled from its place, causing her to flinch just lightly as the light brightened against sensitive eyes. With a click, the light dimmed to more tolerable levels, allowing her eyes to open again without worsening the brewing migraine.  
  
The leather of his gloves, the calloused pale fingers gently cradling her face felt cooler than usual. Perhaps she was feverish? The thought was interrupted, notice taken of the small smile spreading across his face.  
  
 _Relief._  
  
Perhaps he let it out right when he thought she couldn’t quite comprehend her surroundings. Even in the light kiss placed against her forehead, there was an almost uncharacteristic tenderness. In that simple movement, she was aware enough to pick up the pent worry built in the past couple days, dispelled in a single act of mild affection.  
  
He held the spot for the moment before speaking again, sitting back, composure returned. “Unfortunately, progression does  _not_  stop for head trauma.” He rose to stand, leaving a glancing squeeze on her right hand. “I will see to it Maurice keeps an eye on you. Until I return.”  
  
She offered a small smile of her own, as much as she could, in reassurance before he shut the door to begin the maintenance of his empire proper. By the time Maurice arrived on his rounds, she had already dozed again.


	7. Microdrabble Compilation I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of microdrabbles written from specific prompts given.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I reblogged a microdrabble meme on Tumblr; basic idea was:  
> Give me a pairing and an AU/prompt  
> I'll write a three-sentence story about it
> 
> Now I know what you're thinking; Me? Write three sentences? Yeah right. Which is why I changed it to 'short story'. You can send in prompts, as well, the formula is still:
> 
> Give me a pairing [Platonic or Romantic]  
> Give me an AU  
> I'll write a microdrabble for it
> 
> Lydia, Elina, Gabe, Andi, Lace, and Chance all belong to their respective owners

**_Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : HS-AU Gifting a Car**  
  
 _Someone in the complex has a new car…_  First thought through her mind when she clicked her way passed the dark blue monster sitting in the spot at the base of her stairs. _Nice one too, lucky bastard…_  
  
Not that she was hating on her precious R75 parked beneath the awning nearby. It just wasn’t that great for adverse weather. She was not expecting to turn about and see the key with the same emblem on it dangled in front of her face. Eyes trailed up, spotting Thaddius balanced on the stairs in front of her with a smug smirk on his face.  
  
"…You’re un asshole, you know zat?" she pouted up at him, watching that expression falter a moment in confusion. "I get you a toy gun und you show me up vit’ a car. You. Are. Un. Asshole."  
  
That smirk was back, starting to spread into a grin at that. “Ah, but I am  _your_  asshole…”  
  
She couldn’t keep a straight face at that, flash of a hand snatching the baiting key from him. “Touche…”  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : Wedding AU**  
  
"Absolutely lovely, my dear."  
  
Crooked grin was beginning across her face. Being clad in the heavy embroidered silks and satins, layered to accentuate her build properly and give her a more feminine appearance than usual, the silver circlet, the shimmering veil meant nothing more than she looked beautiful. It only masked that devious nature of hers further, muttered reply given back to him.  
  
"I had better be; zis  _ist_  ze ensemble you seemed to enjoy most."  
  
It had been shared opinion that superstitions were unreliable things and thus, he had not only bought the thing for her, but seen her in it prior to the ceremony as well. Granted, this was the first he had seen her with her hair properly bound and tressed, wrapped with the roses and lilies agreed upon. Perhaps a small amount of the superstition remained, dispelled now.  
  
Low chuckle, hand raised from locked fingers at waist level, brushing a lock of that ebon mane what had come loose to rest in front of her face, listening offhandedly to the judge ramble on. “Indeed. It looks better with that glow.”  
  
Such compliment was unexpected, it actually caused her to lose face momentarily. Head lowered, flushing of her cheeks evident against ivory flesh and making the scar on her nose stand out all the more. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught an uncharacteristically soft smile out of him for her bashfulness.  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : Gabe and War [as platonic friends]  _Prompt_ : Dancing**  
  
"You know how to dance, ja?" Purr of a voice was raised to the redhead in front of her, watching an almost bashful blush cross his face at it.  
  
"A-ah, yeah! At least … I know how to dance ballroom, not really anything else…"  
  
Any other ramblings were cut off once German reached forward and grasped his hand, pulling him to her. “Vell. Ve’ll just haf to do a fusion style…”  
  
"Fusion…?"  
  
"Oh ja. You keep ze beat, ballroom steps. I can embellish a bit."  
  
Light of understanding crossed Gabe’s face at that; it was obvious that he understood what she meant now. First few steps once positions were taken were slow, methodical, getting used to the other’s movements and whatever beat he set for the moment.  
  
"Ready?"  
  
"Yeah. Go for it."  
  
Flare, swirl. At first, one of her floating swings almost pulled him off-balance, more for the surprise of the move than for her weight or strength.  
  
"Got to keep anchored, make sure you keep ze beat." It wasn’t really a scolding as it was a reminder, something he took to heart and with the next float, he barely budged.  
  
Before long, movement was little more than second-thought, the musty air punctuated by the voices and laughter between the two echoing off old bookshelves.  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : Blakk and Will [as platonic frenemies]  _Prompt_ : HS-AU Nerf Gun**  
  
"Thaddius, I need to talk to yo—"  
  
Regret. The moment Will had opened the door into the vice’s office, there was an airy  **thnk!**  and the feeling in one spot of … was that a suction cup? Had to have been, since Blakk was slowly laying what looked like a toy pistol down on one side of his desk, straightening up with absolutely no emotion on his face.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Shock wore off almost immediately, Will’s lips pursing in annoyed thought.  
  
"You know what? You seem busy right now. I’ll just come back later."  
  
As the door was shut and the Principal pulled the dart off his forehead, he could have sworn he heard a low laugh sound from the office.

 ** _Pairing_ : Eli & Random Female OC [Platonic/potential Romantic]  _Prompt_ : High School**  
  
"Uhm… excuse me..?"  
  
Low, uncertain voice drew Eli’s attention up from the textbook he had buried himself in. Blue eyes greeted him, lowered once his made contact, small flush starting to creep across the face of the raven-haired girl in front of him. She looked lost, a bit nervous.  
  
"Hey, there. You look like you need help?"  
  
It was an offer of assistance with a flash of a friendly smile. His reward was a meek nod.  
  
"I’m new here and I don’t really know where the Biology labs are?" She held up a slip of paper, with the class, room number, and designated instructor printed on it.  
  
He took it, looked it over, his face splitting into a wide smile. “Well, you’re in luck. That’s my next class.” he assured her, handing it back and nodding down the hall over one shoulder. “You can follow me in, I’ll fill you in on what we’ve done so far.”  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : Eli and Random Female OC [Platonic]  _Prompt_ : Western**  
  
Cold silver gaze looked over the top of the bar, toward the door as a familiar figure strode into the building. Small quirk of her lips were given, though the attempt at expression failed her once again.  
  
" _Dobryy den’_ , Sheriff.” Smooth yet apathetic voice wafted through the air, chill on the heated air of day. “Looking for Kord? He’s next door. Somedhing about fixing a vagon vheel…”  
  
"Good afternoon to you too, Evey." Eli chuckled a bit. He didn’t really know what the Russian was saying, but given the context, he wagered a pretty good guess. "Yeah, but since he’s busy, it can wait. Not too important."  
  
"Vell, I can get you a drink vhile you vhait, if you’d radher." she offered.  
  
He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”  
  
"Dhe usual?" she asked, pulling a glass from a shelf behind the bar.  
  
He gave her a goofy little half-grin. “You know me too well.”  
  
A laugh greeted him with that. More of a chuckle, really, but it was genuine. “You run dhe local ‘vhatering hole’ and you get used to your regular patrons…”  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : ChancexEli  _Prompt_ : Victorian**  
  
"See something interesting in the clouds today?"  
  
Chance snapped from her thoughts, looking to one side with an indignant huff at Eli, who was giving her one of those quirked goofy half-grins. Lace-gloved hand tightened around the parasol over one shoulder, the other balling just slightly.  
  
"I see you still have very little tact,  _Mister_  Shane.”  
  
"Yeah, well…" He paused, expression falling slightly at the realization of her returned taunt. "Hey, now. I have plenty of tact!"  
  
She gave a small laugh, turning away from him with head slightly lofted. “You will have to prove that to me.”  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : GabexLace  _Prompt_ : Modern**  
  
The roar of the old engine announced the arrival of the red-head, Lace looking up from her phone as Gabe pulled up next to her. She opened the door, settled herself in the passenger seat.  
  
"You’re two minutes late." she scolded playfully, shutting the door and buckling herself in.  
  
He gave her a sheepish, apologetic smile, compulsively scratching at the back of his head. “I’m really sorry, there was an accident at Main and Second…”  
  
She scoffed, waving a hand dismissively at him. “I’m kidding, you know that. We should really go or we’ll miss showtime.”  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : Mafia**  
  
The door slid open, light clicking betraying the entrance of perhaps one of his favored running-scouts. His nose was assaulted with the heavy scent of clove smoke with just the barest touches of a rosy perfume in the undertone, head turning to look over his shoulder at the tall slender woman.  
  
As expected, the smoky culprit was dangling from between her lips, hand on her hip while the other was occupied with one of the newer model rifles. Devious glint in those abyssal blue eyes told him silently that her job had been completed appropriately. Turning about, it drew a low chuckle from him.  
  
"I can see the new driver is working out for you." he stated, striding toward her. "And what of our shipment? Did it make it this time?"  
  
Lips shifted upward, exhale blowing a prominent cloud from fanged maw to encircle her head in a halo of smoke. “It made it zis time. I made absolutely certain of it.”  
  
One of his hands had reached out to tilt her head upward, eyes meeting in that indirect affection. “Good girl.” Rare legitimate praises given, his free hand made careful advancement on the cigarette.  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : Medieval/Royalty**  
  
Adelaide scoffed, inspecting the bottom hem on her daughter’s skirts, stained with dirt across the powder-blue satin. “What have you been dragging this through! You know the Lord Blakk is visiting today on his annual business…”  
  
She sounded upset, as she usually did, humming under her breath as she tried to find some way to fix the blemish quickly. Fae sighed at her mother’s nitpicking, trying to pull away without ruining the fabric further.  
  
"I had to exercise Bucephalus, you pulled me out of bed und dressed me before I had a chance to." she scoffed, crossing her arms at her chest to which her mother gave up the endeavor at the hem and smacked them back down.  
  
"Ladies do not cross their arms." Adelaide chided before sighing. "Hopefully he will not notice… Go see your father. He is waiting downstairs."  
  
Fae rolled her eyes, but said no more, leaving as asked and heading for the foyer. She was not expecting to turn a corner and come into contact with a black monolith. She almost spat some small venom until she caught sight of the crest and bit her tongue against it.  
  
There was a low rolling chuckle from Thaddius at the intrusion, a strange glint in those green eyes as he stepped backwards some and bowed his head in greeting. “Excuse me, Princess. I arrived earlier than expected.”  
  
"It’s fine." she assured him before backing herself a step and giving a half-hearted curtsy in return, with correction. "It ist alright."  
  
"Your father is already moved on ahead. Thought you should know." he told her, moving passed before giving that distinctive shark’s grin. "Your muck makes an interesting contrast."  
  
He was gone before he could catch sight of those reddening cheeks of hers. No doubt, he would have a few choice words for those, as well.  
  
 ** _Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : Pirates**  
  
"How did I  _ever_  let you talk me into this?"  
  
Up ahead, the ebon-maned privateer shrugged. She had already peeled off the first several layers of coats and coverings, leaving little more than a flimsy white shirt of almost thread-bare cotton between ivory flesh and the heated moisture of the Caribbean jungles.  
  
"You vanted to see ze vorld, T’adi." That absolutely  _abhorred_  shortname of hers for him, but at this point, he was little more than boiling and besides a snarl in her direction, he didn’t feel much like correcting her. “See your trade routes und all. Not mein fault ve lost a gute portion of our fresh vater in ze last storm.” Here, she hopped the ridge, voice sounding further and further away as she moved, tested the terrain. “Besides. You could haf stayed on ze  _Jericho_  und vaited…”  
  
He grumbled, scrambling after her. “Almost wish I had.”  
  
He had barely crested the ridge when he heard her shout, looking down to see her pointing ahead. Through the tangle of trees and foliage, something glittered, dappled by sunlight patterning through the canopy above it.  
  
 _Water…_

 ** _Pairing_ : BlakkxWar  _Prompt_ : Supernatural [the genre not the show]**  
  
Lost.  
  
Not that he would admit such, even to himself. If asked, he would have very seriously stated he had purposely found himself in the tangle of trunks and roots, thorns and thick undergrowth.  
  
His mind drifted to the reason for this arduous trek and he inwardly cursed putting trust in that fae-bitch. Why, just this morning, he had been comfortably standing at his coffee-maker and hadn’t believed a word of faeries existing outside pastel watercolor drawings in a children’s book. Why couldn’t he have just ignored the antlered visage when it came creeping up to his window. Of course, she would leave him behind as soon as he got into the thick of it. What he wouldn’t give to be back in modern comforts…  
  
Almost on cue, as though called by his mental cursings, she reappeared, perched on an upturned root and staring at him with those hauntingly dark eyes. Pointed ears at the base of those red-threaded antlers twitched as her head canted before single clawed finger pointed ahead of him.  
  
"T’ey are zere…"  
  
The butchered English made him cringe a bit, but he never expected some backwards creature to have even a hint of knowledge about human tongues to begin with. Long story short, this was a bit of a surprise how well she could communicate; he would have to see if he could delve into how well she could later. Musings off linguistics, he stared ahead, through the bramble and the thicket, the direction she was pointing.  
  
A cluster of tall figures, all matte black and bent at odd angles, were slowly shambling up some unseen path toward him. “What are they?”  
  
She moved, lightning quick, behind his right shoulder, next to his ear. “Bad geister. Sehr bad geister. Only evil can destroy evil; only one vill stand.”  
  
His head snapped around to see that she had left him again. Useless faebeast… A crunching screeching drew his attention to the entities of before, having crossed the distance surprisingly quickly and pushing through the wood of the tangled trees ahead. White eyes were visible now, long pointed teeth and sharply-pointed fingers making quick work of the wood and thorned vines, trying to reach for him.  
  
He hid the startle at how fast they had crossed their distance and reached at his right hip. There was nothing there, a low grumble at the inconvenience before he squared himself off and readied for the coming onslaught of apparently-carnivorous spirits.  
  
 **ElixAndi - _Bruises_**  
  
There was something wrong.  
  
She recognized the sound of Lucky as the mech was ridden up toward the hideaway and at first, from far off, it sounded normal. It wasn’t until it was closer that she heard the subtle sparking grind of metal on metal passed the mechanical drone.  
  
Andi poked her head around the corner into the main cavern cautiously from the niche in the rock wall, catching sight of the wolf-mech as it came closer and closer to her. It took a second to notice that there was a small puffing trail of smoke emitting with a cloud of sparks from Lucky’s left hind-leg, a faint limp in the mech’s movements.  
  
Eli was riding still upright on seat, which was a good sign. He was holding his left shoulder and wincing, though. Not such a good sign, especially with the distinct absence of Kord, Trixie, or Pronto anywhere nearby. A twinge settled in her stomach, something she had felt before. It was heavy, unpleasant.  
  
She ran out into the open, caught the strained smile on his face when he saw her and pulled to a stop. He could already see the panic starting to pool in her body before she began to show it outwardly and tried to worm his way around what he knew already to be the source of it.  
  
"Hey, the others are behind me, they’ll be along in a second, I’m su—"  
  
He was stopped mid-sentence by her next exclamation as he slid with a small stumble to the ground, Burpy setting off a small series of scolding chirps from Lucky’s head. Andi made herself heard easily, trying to pry his supporting hand off his shoulder. “Shit! Are you bleeding!?”  
  
"What?" he asked in partial surprise before backing away with a slight wince and giving a vigorous shake of his head. "No! No, it’s just … just sprained a bit, promise!"  
  
Her face scrunched up in a combination of determination and worry at the distinct stutter, one foot stomping with her little hands balled into fists at her side, arms stiff and locked. It took her a second before she was finally able to blurt out, “Eli Shane, you asshat, I’m a bit too corporeal to help you by going  _through_  your damned hand! So  _move it_!”  
  
The unified roar of two more familiar mechs (and the coughing of one) sounded from down the road, though her mind was more set on getting the unwilling Shane to comply. Thankfully, he seemed to see no other way out of dodging the metaphoric bullet that was the fuming Andi and gingerly pulled his hand away.  
  
To her relief, there was no blood, or at least not even enough to stain if there was. Even checking around his bony shoulder and under the shirt (much to his unheard protest) proved fruitless to anything too dire. Realizing the worst of what he might get was a bruise, she sighed. In that one exhale, it felt like all the worry and concern that had been building dissipated completely and she was left feeling strangely relaxed.  
  
"Can I … put my shirt back…" Eli started, looking around almost nervously. There was no need for him to finish the sentence really, and she caught on almost immediately.  
  
"Yes. Yes you may." she huffed, placing her hands on her hips and leveling her gaze on him, scrutinizing. "And watch yourself out there next time, you ass. I won’t be doing this again."  
  
All he could do was chuckle a bit at it. “Noted.”  
  
 **BlakkxWar - _Needles_**  
  
Small whimper managed to escape, bottom lip bitten to muffle the noise as much as she could. Forehead rested against the tabletop, cool against her skin, ebon mane left flowing in inky tendrils to obscure sight. Fingers against the table edge curled, arm tensing. Deep inhale, waiting for the feel of cold metal puncturing skin of her lower left arm.  
  
Comforting grip around her left wrist tightened, reassuring to keep her calm and give her fair warning of the needle sliding through the ivory flesh and pulling thread through. At the continued flinch, he gave off an almost amused chuckle.  
  
"Never thought that you, of all people, would be afraid of needles." Thaddius rumbled at her, trying once to find abyssal blue gaze through the makeshift blinder of hair. "Although, my title of ‘Doctor’ certainly also doesn’t mean I have a degree in medicine. So I suppose there are worse things…"  
  
There was mild exasperation in her reply, obviously trying to take her mind off the idea that he was doing his best to see her wound closed and taken care of. “I don’t trust ze actual medical kind.”  
  
"And yet, you completely put your trust in  _me_. I could question your judgement in this logic, you know."  
  
"Vill you?"  
  
"I said I could. Not that I would." He chuckled a bit at that, delivering a particularly harsh pricking of the needle into the edge of the slicing cut along her arm, watching her flinch again. "You know, a proper doctor would have anesthetics and sedatives for you…"  
  
"Can’t trust zem, especially vit’ zat." she strained. "So I vill haf to take mein chances vit’ you."  
  
His right brow snapped up at that, practically stabbing her with the needle now and none-too-gently pulling the thread through. His ears were treated to a grated cry of, “Fuck! _Fuck_!” out of her, her right hand clenching so hard that he honestly feared for the condition of the table in her grip. Needless to say, it was satisfying.  
  
"This is why you need a real doctor, my dear. I seem to have grown a slight  _careless_ …” he told her, not even trying to hide the self-satisfied smirk on his face at it.  
  
"You’re a  _fucking_  asshole, you know zat!” she snarled at him before snarling something else under her breath in her native German. “Und your bedside manner ist horrid.”  
  
She was given another low chuckle, knowing. “Doctors are not supposed to have a ‘bedside manner’. Regardless of being a medical practitioner or having doctorates. That’s what nurses are for.”  
  
"You need a nurse." she grumbled.  
  
"Perhaps you can be mine." The taunt was met with a scoff before he added as an afterthought, "Though, with your typically cynical nature, I am sure you would not be much better versed in it than I am." The thread was tied off, snipped, her wounded forearm sterilized further and wrapped. "The needle is done now, my dear. You can come out of hiding."  
  
Her grip on the table-edge had let up, head lifting to glance through her curtaining mane before shaking it out of the way. “Danke. For putting up vit’ zis.”  
  
"I consider it a bonus. Peeling away at developmental layers, as it were." he assured her, tucking the final edge of the bandage under. His freed right hand reached forward, lifted her head carefully under her chin. Eyes were raised to level with his, muted jade to abyssal blue. "You are also staying here until it is time to remove stitches. Understand?"  
  
Prussian gave him a disgruntled expression at this; he could already see the urge to wander growing. “Ja…”  
  
Her face shifted to an amused smile with a chortling laugh when he bent down and planted a kiss to the scar shredding across her nose, gentle. “And … you really should see an actual doctor.”  
  
A crooked smile crossed his face to mirror his low chuckle when she groaned in exasperation at the suggestion.

 ** _Pairing_ : KordxLydia  _Prompt_ : Wedding**  
  
"Are you nervous?"  
  
Soft voice broke the larger troll’s thoughts of the future, drone of the official sounding far away for the moment. Those pretty blue eyes met his again, sparkling, soothing.  
  
It drew nothing short of a slightly awkward half-grin to Kord’s face, complete with creeping blush at being caught in his musings. “Yeah, maybe a little.”  
  
The look on her face contorted a bit, almost hurt before she dropped her gaze, behind the veil. “Y-you’re not … regretting anything, are you…?”  
  
Is that what she thought from his silence? Oh geez! In a small fit of panic, his reaction went the opposite way to make amends.  
  
His face changed, something calm and smiling, bending a bit to the side to catch her eye and draw her attention back up, hands on hers squeezing just slightly in assurance. ”How could I, when the prettiest girl in the world told me she’d marry me, yeah?”  
  
Eye contact was resumed, the shorter troll straightening up again. Her own blush was prominent, but not so much as the happy smile that shone brighter than any light he had seen.  
  
 ** _War_ : A Best Friend Memory**  
  
There weren’t that many children in Babel who would try to fraternize with a Horseman, present or future. It was like there was an invisible barrier between the children born to the prestigious titles and the rest of the Babylon social.  
  
Even so, there were always the four of them, five and six happening as soon as Oberon’s little sister and brother were born; apparently, even being related to them was grounds for intimidated shunning. There was no judgement held between them, even after Fae lost her mother and her ability to walk to The Pit.  
  
If anything it was because those five smiling faces, in the adversity of a child still in her single digits forced into disability, had helped remind her that even trapped in clumsy supporting iron, she could do anything she wanted.  
  
 **Secret Karma Serenade**  
  
 _Older War_  
  
A refined creature of control and reign, a general with nothing short of a silver lash of a tongue and the wit to back it. At the age of 42 years, War has since passed her title on to her youngest son and now resumes the name her mother gave her at birth:  _Fae_.  
  
Very easily, the imagery she provides of the delicate doll hides such devious thoughts and a roiling cauldron of almost predatory intellect: clad in fine silks hemmed and detailed in gold leaf in the shape of the Babylon-cultural saree, dangling with chiming baubles of apparent value, hands and arms henna-stained with symbolism known to her native caverns and very few places else. Movements smooth, like water or air, most unexpected with the way her ankles are confined to their smooth metal hybrid prisons, little more than deception to her actual ability to move.  
  
Head up, shoulders back, a devilish glint in those abyssal blues, she is now allowed to indulge in the wealth of her native home while still maintaining her commanding presence as Thaddius’ companion and partner.


	8. Sehnsucht

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a microdrabble I wrote to try and drag my ass out of this creative rut.  
> It’s short, but I think I’m getting a bit of swing back.

His steps are not quite as advanced as hers are, and he knows this. He has never been particularly elegant, only functional. However, he knows just enough to keep his own simplistic steps from tangling with her extravagant footwork. It's in the way she moves, and usually it is his job to lead, but he doesn't necessarily know how. So he leaves it to her, adding two and three steps to her tapping cadence of fours and sixes.

Somewhere in his mind, bemused thoughts of admiration play for her ability to move so smoothly for someone who cannot bend her ankles. The way she carries herself through turns, through spins. The way she can still flare those silken skirts, a glitter and a chime, combined with that twinkling and enchanting laugh. She is a lovely creature, tall and graceful with a penchant toward the dramatic. She flows like air, with no mind that he barely moves; she knows as well as he that the contact is really all that matters.

He watches her spin on the ball of one foot, heel support barely grazing the floor, using his outstretched hand to balance and support. The surprise is sudden once the rotation stops, fingers closing around her hand and gentle tug to set her off-balance just enough to stumble toward him. It is not enough to hurt her, she still recovers before she collides with him. Hand tilts her chin up just enough, peck of a kiss delivered to her lips. Small shows of affection, foreheads resting briefly with arms wrapped around the other before he has to pull away.

Work will not wait, and she knows this just as well as he. Distance is painful, but the small smile she affords him before turning away assures him that she will not be far.


	9. Unended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War is visited by an unexpected guest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what to do with this, but if I don’t get it out, it will sit and haunt me for a month.  
> I’ll find something to do with it eventually. It’s incomplete.

He was sitting not too far from her, one leg crossed over the other with a straight back, squared shoulders, and his strong jaw set. He wasn’t looking at her, but she would know that frame anywhere, that posturing, the soft smile across his chiseled face.  
  
“…Papa…?”  
  
It had to have been a dream, she determined, or a ghost; Dietrich Heinricht was still missing, presumed deceased. He wouldn’t have searched for her after all this time to take his place at the foot of the bed. At least, he wouldn’t have done so calmly if he had any knowledge of Thaddius sleeping next to her. If anything, a living incarnation of her father would have murdered the industrialist in his sleep. That was just the way Dietrich would have reacted, and his indifference toward the room and all in it was too out of the ordinary to betray him as alive.  
  
At her acknowledgement, his head turned. Pale blue eyes looked not at her directly, but through her, as though she were the spectre in the room. “Do you remember your name?” It was an odd request, his voice reverberating on itself as though its own personal echo.  
  
“ _Ich bin Krieg_.” The answer was instantaneous, attention shifting briefly toward Thaddius, who remained asleep and completely unphased by the interaction taking place. “I took ze title vhen you disappeared…”  
  
“Not your title.” Dietrich drawled, still staring at a spot just above her eyes. “Your name.”  
  
It took a moment to think. It had been so long since she had actively been called by it, since it had been no less than beaten out of her so that she might take on the title when she came of age without hindrance. She had almost forgotten it, reliving her past and childhood. Reliving her father’s voice saying it again and again until she turned twelve.  
  
“Fae.”  
  
Dietrich’s face softened, adding to him a few more years of age. “Ah. Gute. Do you remember vhy your mutter gave you zat name?”  
  
Her lips pursed at it. Adelaide was still a sore spot, almost literally; she swore she felt the ambient ache in her ankles intensify just a bit at the remembrance of the night the woman tried to kill them both. “I try not to remember her…”  
  
Her father shook his head. “Some people are affected by ze magnet, und you can never tell who is. But remember your youth before zat, because if you remember, I told you ven you vere nine, zat she named you for your laugh.”  
  
She averted her gaze from the spirit, shook her head a bit. “It vas information unnecessary to ze training. I forgot ze detail to replace it.”  
  
He chuckled a bit, a familiarity to such detail. “…You laughed today. It reminded me vhy.” His eyes shifted to look at her directly, the act left her paralyzed of breath and movement. Haunting, heart-stopping, and now she understood the disconnected glances. “Try not to forget. Your name is vat separates you from your generations past. You are you in ze end, not your title. I vish mein mutter had been ze one to tell me, instead of me figuring it out on mein own.”  
  
He stood up, turning away with a mutter about how he needed to get back to the others. She took a moment to catch her breath again before calling out to him. “Vhere are you? Everyone is so vorried.”  
  
He paused, looked partially over one shoulder. “I couldn’t tell you. I’m not entirely sure vhere ve are ourselves, und under Baptiste’s vards, it makes it difficult to contact his son.”  
  
Before she could ask anything more, Dietrich had disappeared from the room, leaving behind no sign he had been there to begin with. Despite her best efforts to keep it contained, she couldn’t stop the tears from welling or the telling lump in her throat from rising.


	10. Plummet Ver.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rewrite of the story on why War doesn't like the mention of her mother, and how she managed to break her ankles so ... thoroughly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AS FAIR WARNING: This drabble includes themes such as:
> 
> -EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND MANIPULATION OF A CHILD   
> -ATTEMPTED HOMICIDE OF A CHILD  
> -SUICIDE  
> -BREAKING BONES
> 
> If you have a problem with any of this, you don't have to read ahead, but if you do anyway, you were warned.

She paced in front of the door for what felt like the thousandth time that night. When she had begun, almost an hour ago, the movement in the otherwise quiet house had woken the sleeping seven-year-old. The ambient roar of the Tigris and the thrumming tune of the magnet were joined five minutes into Adelaide's nightly patrolling of the house by a low murmuring from the woman.

Fae laid in bed, wide awake, and watched the shadow pass under the door again. Papa was escorting the bi-annual shipment of magnet plates to one of the Forges outside of Babel and would be away for a week or two more, at least. He had left his only daughter and heir to his title in the care of Death, who had also taken to watch over the girl's mother. Usually, the Haitian would stay i n the house at night to keep his friend's wife from hurting herself or, in the worse case scenario, the child. Unfortunately for the latter, Death was needed to watch over something in the Babelan depths, leaving the door to the house firmly locked with a specialized anti-magnetic keypad. Only the presiding Horsemen and little Fae knew the passcode to get in and out.

This wasn't the first time she had done this, pacing the halls of the house and talking fervently to people who did not exist. It had been happening off and on for years. When asked about it, all War would say was that she had started when they lost the first twin in the miscarriage, the one that was born before Fae followed, breathing and healthy. That Adelaide Heinricht, his beloved wife and mother to his surviving child and the next generation of Horsemen, was dangerous. He had expressed such worry before he left that the woman possessed may try to cause harm to their daughter. Fae knew that her father had said that if she showed any form of violence toward her, Death had been asked to kill her.

_"We must protect the next generation. At all costs."_

She remembered his voice had cracked when he said it. The words were issued in German, where the majority of the Babelan populace couldn't understand it, but she heard it and knew it, clear as when the Lumino Ore brightened for the day. Papa had taken a preventative assassination order out for her mother, knowing that Death with his wide knowledge of natural drugs could do it without harming the deranged woman. It was evident that through the entire ordeal, he still loved his wife dearly.

The light beneath the door was blocked again, but instead of moving passed, the shadow remained stationary. The knob turned, audible even though it was obvious the sound wasn't meant to happen, a blatant attempt to silence the mechanics in the door heard in slight muffle. She shut her eyes, trying to pretend to be asleep so Adelaide may pass her over and continue her vigilance of the house and its unseen inhabitants. She heard the door creak slightly on its hinges, a faint grind of metal on metal, and very cautiously lifted her lids part way in order to be able to counter if her mother turned physically malicious. Though combat was a few years into her training still, the very basics were ingrained enough that she could get away and find Death if necessary.

The light spread across the floor as the door opened , blinding against the dark of her room and crawling across the wall and ceiling. There was a swishing sound from the elder as she passed almost silently into the room, the silks of her  _lengha_  rubbing against one another. Through half-lidded eyes, she could see the ebon cloud of hair cascading from her head outlined stark against the light beyond the door. She knew it hadn't been brushed or tended in a few days, but the nature of the beastly mane could hide that easily; in an attempt to calm herself with amused thoughts, she noted mentally that she did not look forward to having such an untamed head of hair like that.

With every hurried step into the room, Fae could feel the adrenaline beginning to pump in excess. Her heartbeat elevated, though she had controlled her breathing as best she could to remain shallow. All a part of the illusion that she was asleep. There was a pause in her mother's advance, stopping next to her daughter's bed and blocking out the majority of the light. Her eyes closed after that, slowly to not arouse suspicion, but she kept her ears still listening. Just in case.

She was not expecting the hand placed with a familiar and lost maternal gentleness against her shoulder, gently shaking her presumably into wakefulness. Slowly, she opened her eyes against it, trying to feign fatigue while still keeping relatively calm. It was more difficult to do so with the image that greeted her.

With the back-lighting, Adelaide looked gaunt and unhealthy. Her cheeks were sunken with dark bags under her eyes and with the wild mane about her head, she could have easily been one of the Phase-Ghosts that appeared throughout the chasm in the magnet. Her eyes, once vibrant and dark blue, were a shadow of their former selves, as though covered by fog. Her gaze was not directed toward her daughter's face, but rather somewhere above it, like she was staring at someone, or some _thing_ , embedded in the wall over the bed.

When she spoke, her voice was ragged and worn like she had been talking for hours without stop. She spoke the fluent German that was her daughter's native language, the scratching sound of her voice causing goosebumps to form on the young girl she was addressing.

"I am so sorry to wake you, my little one." she began, the exhausted lilt of her voice chilling. Something wasn't right, or at least less right than usual. "I need your help."

She made a show of rubbing one eye, trying to clear it of any residual goop. The more authentic it was, even if it was faked, the more likely she was to avoid any disturbance. "I need my sleep, Mama. Is Death unable to help?"

_Of course he is. He's not even in the house and you know that._

Her response was not surprising, a reiteration of the girl's thoughts. "He was needed on the agriculture islands, below. He can't help, else I might not need you."

It was in the way she said it. It chilled the blood and caused her breath to start quickening, despite herself. Hopefully, Adelaide was delusional enough not to notice the panic that was beginning to take hold. It rose like a physical lump from the pit of her stomach, one which she swallowed back down.

"Maybe he'll be back soon?" Fae suggested, nervous. "I really need to sleep if I'm going to be able to train in the morning."

Her mother shook her head fervently. "I doubt he will. There was a commotion concerning a patch of the Fandangos down there. It may take him a while." There was that lilt again. Bone-chilling, the younger beginning to feel like she was being manipulated into the inevitable.

"What ... do you need?" Fae was hesitant, pushing herself back against the headboard defensively. She was alert, more than ever. Adelaide's next words caught her by surprise.

"I need you to open the door."

They hung in the air, practically dripping with ill-intent. Once more, she was keenly aware of the surge of adrenaline, the 'fight or flight' response being brought out and honed in her prominent. Something was obviously wrong and her instinct was telling her such. She had to try to play it safe and hold out until Death got back to help her handle her.

"But I can't." she insisted in reply, an exasperated tone on her voice to accentuate her unwillingness to the request.

Her mother looked hurt at the denial, though it didn't stop her. "But you are the one who knows the code to the pad, and I need to leave." She wrapped her hand around the child's upper arm.

Usually a move seen as pleading, Fae only felt threatened by it and couldn't stop the reflexive flinch away from the woman. It was a just such a move that drew attention, the grip tightening just a bit.

"Oh, don't be frightened. Not like  _them_. See, this is why I need out. They  _need_  me."

The air in the room grew heavy with that revelation. The younger felt intimidated by the woman, and the action taken against her caused a thought to flit across her mind. Would her mother's actions continue to escalate? Would she be put in more danger were she to refuse a third time? The grip on her arm tightened further, bringing with it a constricting pain.

"...If I let you out, will you let me sleep?"

To avoid any other harm to her, it was only natural to offer what was wanted. Papa would be upset if his wife hurt herself, but he would be furiously so if something happened to his heir and only child. Adelaide's grip on her arm loosened for her to pull it away, her features softening just a bit.

"You may sleep all you want."

There was something sinister in that promise and the words haunted after her as she slipped from her bed to move toward the front door. She was fully aware of the spectre that was her mother following along after her, by both the sound of the rubbing silks in motion and the ominous feeling of almost predatory eyes at her back. Through the hall, down the stairs, and making a dart to the front door of the ancestral manor.

Not many would be out after dark, she assured herself as she made it to the keypad to punch in the numeric combination. It made a beeping noise and lit up green around the pad, a clicking sounding from the mechanism itself. Adelaide would not be able to hurt someone unable to help themselves. Most of those who would be out now were miners from deep in The Pit. They would stop her before she caused too much trouble.

That was the initial strategy, at least. Let her out and let someone in a better position handle the woman. That strategy changed as soon as the door was opened and Fae was on her way back up to bed. On her way over the threshold and into the outdoors, one of her hands snatched the wrist of the child attempting to retreat further into the house. The younger cried out, out of surprise, before stumbling along after her mother.

"You ... you said you would leave me alone to sleep!" she finally managed to stutter out once the shock left her, falling into step behind the woman. The grasses were cool beneath her bare feet, a fine contrast to the heated air that rested in the chasm that made Babel. Soon, it gave way to slightly warmer stone as she was lead further and further away from home.

Adelaide's eyes were wild when she looked over her shoulder, the glint of perhaps anger across her face at such insubordination. "You promised to help me, remember." The overly-sweet tones she had used before gave way to a hoarse hissing.

"I promised to get you out of the house if you let me go to back to sleep!" was the whimpering reply, an attempt at getting free given by pushing her feet into the ground and using that as leverage to pull back and away. It only served to tighten the grip her mother had on her wrist further, tugging her along once more.

"How ungrateful of you to spoil your gifts squandering them for yourself." Adelaide spit further. "There are people who need you, right now, and here you are, being selfish."

"But I have no 'gifts' to give! How can I be selfish with them if I don't even have them!"

The pace slowed just enough for the elder to once more cast her glare into her hostage's eyes. The expression of boiling fury across her face caused a new wave of panic to rise in the young Fae and renewed her efforts to break free. "You are War. I am certain your skill-set will come in handy to help them."

"I'm not. War. Yet!" she protested, pulling hard with each emphasized word.

Of course, her efforts did little to stop her determined mother and before long, she had been dragged from her home and over the bridges into Babel proper, Adelaide coming to a stop at the railing along the edge of one of the upper floating islands. She took one moment to stare into the abyssal maw that fell into nothing, the walls of the open mines far below glowing hellish red.

"They may have need of War."

As she climbed over the rails, Fae felt the lump in her stomach return. She recognized it as fear. While early training had done away with the need for fear, called it a weakness and wrong, this moment dragged the primeval need to flee to the fore as a need for self-preservation rather than a weakness. Her mother's grip faltered just slightly as she balanced on the edge of the island, offering her an opportunity to pull away.

She took it. She yanked her hand away from the woman, chancing a glance behind her. The warm wind that always blew around the chasm ruffled hair and silk as she settled partially over The Pit and partially still on Babel. The next movement was a precarious balancing act to turn around and rock forward on her toes, staring with a determined hatred toward her retreating child.

"I said you're coming with me." she snarled.

Her hand moved, the next few seconds were a blur. Little Fae caught movement on the bridge that swept downward, recognized the bronze eyes and painted face of Death as he returned from his task that night. She tried to convey her unwillingness to be where she was to him with just a look, the shaman taking in the sight and running forward instantaneously with a yell that roused more than a few unseen people into action to come running to his aid. She felt her mother's fingers like claws dig into the back of her night-clothes, felt her feet leave the ground with a yelp of her own. She reached for Death in a vie for assistance and missed his own reaching hand by barely inches before the island fell away and she was whisked into the darkness between the chasm walls.

Death stood for a very brief second, looking after the pair with nothing short of raw rage spreading across his face before he roared something in a deep and terrifying voice down into The Pit. For a second, it threatened to drown out the magnet's deafening voice before it disappeared and was returned with equally loud thundering shouts from the direction of the mines. With confirmation, he turned away from the railing and began the descent across the commercial upper islands into the industrial lower.

The dark was all-encompassing, visuals mingling together as the pair plummeted, a tangled mass of silk and hair melding into the inky black all around them. Adelaide had since renewed her grasp on her daughter, acting the anchor to the pull deeper down into the maw of The Pit. It took a moment for Fae's shocked mind to comprehend the danger she was in and even then, with a few feeble attempts to loosen herself from her possessed parent, she made an effort to break free to no avail due to her environmental circumstances.

It was several minutes before the glow of the mines came near enough to illuminate the both of them together, the elder's face looking ever more hell-born with the red light glinting off the sunken curves and creating something almost skull-like. It was here the child found reprieve from her captor, as Adelaide fell into a temporary trance and her iron grip lessened just enough for the girl to break free.

"We'll go and help.  _Together_."

The words that floated up from Adelaide's lips were mere whispers, almost drowned out by the whistling displaced air. They had crossed fully over the threshold and were passing through the mines and for a moment, the panic returned to the younger. The mines were the last known point of human habitation in The Pit and they built the unseen border to the point of no return, the droning abyss beyond the last of the open-sided mining corridors the final destination for many before, and likely many after. It was a combination of the of the situation with her mother's utterances from below that settled a feeling in the young girl.

This was not her mother. Her mother would have never done something like this. In her mind, drawing on folktales and stories of the region, what she heard was the magnet speaking through the older woman. It was not an uncommon occurrence, she had been told, and this seemed no exception. An unstable mind, vulnerable in tragedy, was prime estate for whatever beast the magnet was to take hold and control. Adelaide Heinricht was no longer the loving mother who had cared for her when Papa was away on business and was instead being manipulated by the magnet itself, and that realization caused a sudden detachment in the girl.

When the shouts rang out in the lower levels of the mines and the rope nets were slung out into the chasm, the gravity of the predicament wrenched the previously shock-subdued self-preservation into being. Although they had passed by the first throw, the thick mooring ropes that made the large net swung heavily and swiftly down and back toward its point of origin. It allowed it to brush by her lower legs and the limbs snapped out to wrap into the tethers. She did not reach for the other woman, taking her freedom as she could get it and made the attempt to loop her knees into the holes to absorb the force of her weight pulling against the net.

The move angered the magnet-influenced woman, an unearthly shriek that echoed above the ambient thrum around them emitted in her rage. Her face contorted, looking ever more inhuman, and before her unwilling companion could fall out of range, her claw-like fingers had grabbed both wrists of the younger once more, giving a sharp tug.

"You  _promised_!" came the next screech, teeth bared in what was a grotesque snarl in her red-highlighted malnourished face.

It was punctuated by a scream of surprised terror from her captive, the feeling of the pull dragging her from her anchoring point at the knees. In a desperate vie to keep from falling out of the net and out of range of her one chance at safety, she did the next best thing and tangled her legs into the ropes as best she could. The fall combined with the swing of the net and the excess weight of her assailant dragging her down were the catalysts. She knew that was what it was, even in those young years. The ropes pulled taut, as they were supposed to, but the shock of the extra weight yanking her down caused her to rest unnaturally against her lifelines. There was a distinct crackling, an uncomfortable sharp pain, before the splintering snap sounded and was accompanied by searing agony emanating from her lower legs up. Some part of her could feel the ropes rubbing the skin raw as they dug into the growing split between her lower legs and her feet, the separation between the two worrying.

However, it brought with it something almost pleasant in the face of adversity. Adelaide's face softened briefly at the distinct noise and the cry of pain that left her daughter's lips at it. Her hands let go, as though registering she was the reason for it, appalled at such actions in that short second that she had broken the magnet's power on her. An involuntary maternal instinct to let go. She was far out of range when the magnet regained hold, seeping audibly into her mind with an inhuman howl passed the final threshold, swallowed by the shadows what lied beyond, into the abyssal depths of The Pit.

Fae watched her fall out of sight, withdrawn with the realization that she had potentially murdered her mother to save herself. The jarring landing against the side of The Pit did not snap her from the traumatized trance she had taken, the pain emitted by her shattered ankles barely a throb as she was pulled to the safety of the mines and the ropes unwound from her legs. Death had finally arrived on the scene, cradling the girl against him so that she might have a familiar face to snap to. All she could register were muffled shouts and the vibrations of the larger mining mechabeasts brought in to help transport back up to the top of the chasm, a blur of color and light and sound melding to one against the imagery playing again and again of that final glimpse of her mother. The one who, in the end, apologized for the pain she had caused without words and let go to save her child before the presiding demon could change her mind.

Soft, regretful, and now gone, swallowed by The Pit, another sacrifice to the horrifying creature that surrounded them all. Another life lost to the magnet and its thrumming encompassing depths.

* * *

It had been almost a week since the incident and Fae had been virtually unresponsive. While she would still react to sustenance and other such necessary needs, she had been dispondent and mute, relying solely on body language when she needed the bathroom, or had to be moved from her spot for a change of position. Her ankles and the adjoining bones in her lower legs had been splintered and separated, bound in monstrous metal frames made to keep her bones in relative alignment for mending, as well as to keep her from moving on her own and causing further damage.

Death had kept constant vigilance on her, catering to her unspoken necessities and making sure she had been appropriately drugged with a painkilling concoction. After the second night he had witnessed her not sleeping well and going through fits, he had started to administer a sedative alongside the evening doses, watching over her as she slept in an attempt to keep any ghosts or spirits that may have attached to her away, things that would have kept her from sleeping to begin with.

His role as a ghost-talker had helped after the fourth night, when the partially-flattened and crooked spectre of the girl's mother had inadvertently manifested in one corner of the room. He had understood then and there the reasons for her sleeplessness. It was easy for him to dispel the ghost since it didn't put up much of a fight. She slept easier without the invading guilt he had heard the phantom croak, knowing that it had chosen to fight with words in the hereafter instead of with actions. Such was typical of such low-caliber spirits.

It was the night after the one-week mark that War returned home with Famine and the magnet caravan. When he checked in with the Council, as per the guidelines set by the Horsemen generations before, he finally learned of the events that transpired in his absence. Worry was evident in his departure from the Council toward his ancestral home, fear to his daughter's condition; he had already come to terms that it would not be long before he lost his wife, that it was inevitable she might be killed.

But his little Fae, his treasure and heir.

To hear she had been affected spurred him into action, entering the front door and calling her name. She didn't answer him, the dread of any overly-concerned father rising like a poisonous shadow. Up the stairs, down the hall toward her room, he was expecting the worst. Through her door, he skid to a stop.

Death was sitting next to her, wide awake. She was asleep, tucked with an uncharacteristic parental gentleness that was not even spared for his own son. Her lower legs were propped in metal frames at the foot of her bed, left uncovered so that they wouldn't snag on the fabric. The Haitian looked up toward his comrade, his flushed face, and the glassy eyes.

"...She prob'ly won'be walkin'. Soon, or e'er." he stated, his voice low as though afraid to disturb her drugged slumber.

War remained silent, processing what he was being told. Death knew what that could mean for the taller German; he might have to find a surrogate heir and start again. Four years spent pouring the early training into the successor to his title, gone in one night. The shaman stood, turning toward his old friend and placing a hand on the taller man's shoulder.

"You've my condolences for y'loss. Both of 'em." he started before looking over his shoulder to the sleeping child. "But now, y'gotta suck it in, ne'er give up. For her. Ya'all tha's left in 'er life, Dietrich. I's jes' the two a'ye now."

All he received was a slow nod of silent acknowledgement. A pat was given to his shoulder before the Haitian left him to his daughter. He waited until he was certain Death had exited the house, hearing the front door click closed throughout the empty house. It was eerie, being silent after almost six years of Adelaide's constant mumbled ramblings.

It hit him like a landslide, the loss of his wife and his daughter's injuries causing a brief stunt of emotions. He slid into the chair Death had occupied no more than a few minutes before, setting his light blue eyes first to his sleeping child's face before letting them wander to the frames at her legs. The thought that he had been unable to end it himself finally took root, his face buried in one hand as he began to cry.


	11. Plummet Afterword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How a young Fae, in the face of adversity, took back her title following the disaster what broke her ankles.

Following the events of  _Plummet_  (in which Adelaide kills herself and permanently cripples her seven-year-old daughter and the heir for the title  **War**  in an attempt to take her with her into The Pit), a young Fae is told she will never walk correctly again.

Of course, this devastates her just as much as it does her father, who starts to accept the fact that he may need to find a proxy child to train. As to be expected, a suitable child is not found within the time Fae's ankles heel enough for her to stumble around in the clunky, heavy metal medical braces that have been attached to her since the accident.

She is just coming into eight years of age when she approaches her father and tells him with all the stern seriousness in her little body that she can muster that she is still destined for her title. Dietrich (her father and the current War of the time) tells her that he will only induct her back into the program if she can find a way to move easily, without stumbling and tripping, in the braces she is currently wearing.

He thinks he has her caught, that she will be disheartened at the request; it is his lapse of forgetfulness to her iron-willed stubbornness that surprises him later.

It takes her some time to figure out a plan of action. Several weeks, to be exact, and only on accident. One of the classes for one of many dance academies in the upper islands of Babel are out on the day she spies them, watching those trained in Persian dance on their outdoor dance-floor.

They are graceful.  
They are fluid.  
They move like air and water.  
And their footwork is impeccable.

She is filled with a fire sparked by hope, wanting to get them to teach her how to move like they do. She toddles to the academy and asks to be inducted into their program. They know exactly who she is, despite not speaking a word of German, and of her predicament now. With a sound reasoning with only body language that she cannot walk and therefore cannot be expected to dance, she is turned down. It won't be the first time, either.

She tries again. And again.  _And again._  
The result is always the same; strong, firm rejection.

For any other person, this is something that would make them give up. But Fae has a title to defend. She will not smother her fire just yet.

Eventually, she stops trying to actively get in and instead spends the next several weeks watching and waiting patiently for the classes to come out onto the outdoor dance-floor. When they do, she tries to imitate them from afar.

It is slow going, especially without proper guidance and massive clunking hindrances on her lower legs. But eventually, after almost a month working at it, she has enough skill to shakily mimic the dancers she watches and studies, enough to prove her seriousness to the academy with the appropriate body language. Not enough for Papa; he will need more, and better, convincing than the recruiter who hands her the pen does.

She starts as a beginner. This is no surprise; her mimicry is decent, but she understands that there is still a ways to go. The instructor dislikes having to modify his teaching structure to accommodate her handicap, both physically and linguistically, even though the other attendees to the class don't seem to mind at all. After four months, he has gotten used to it and welcomes it.

It is eight months following this decision to learn that she finally has enough balance and control to prove to her father that she is still worthy of her title. He praises her determination with no small amount of surprise that she did indeed complete her goal. He tells her to keep going, that when she can perform a full dance, he will take her more seriously.

Frustrated, she returns to the academy and continues to work hard at her next task. She is almost ten before she approaches him again and performs. The dance is not that complicated, but it demonstrates more to him how strong she has become to both carry the heavy braces and be able to accommodate their size into controlled and disciplined sweeping steps. To remain graceful despite her inability to bend or shift below her knees.

In the end, the proof of her seriousness to the title and to regain it earns her taking it back. Displaying well-hidden shock, her father restores her to the name she is born to bear, placing her back in the training regiment with very slight changes to accommodate.

Since dance was what helped her, she is to continue taking it. Schedules are re-drawn up to include collaborated times with the academy. Dietrich has commissioned the first set of 'floating' braces, a smaller and more simple design than what she will receive in her late teens, the ones she dons throughout the rest of her adult life.

It takes some time to re-calibrate herself to how sleek they are compared to the massive hindering set she was forced into. She does so with help, impressed by the time she is thirteen with how easily the footwork comes to her in the lightweight ease of her new equipment.

By now, she can appropriately communicate with her instructors and her classmates. Thanks is expressed to them for their help, but she must move on to styles more suited to her training. Persian dance is beautiful, certainly, and while it has helped her considerably in learning how to balance herself again and move without distinct hindrance, it is time to find something more advanced for her footwork and control of the rest of her body.

She still performs with the academy when she can; it is good to give both young children and older crowds the option to both help themselves and become more immersed in their own culture. But that is all the Persian start is to her; a hobby. She seeks something more.

Her instructor points her toward one of Babel's other numerous academies of the arts. He believes she may find what she is looking for there. Unexpectedly, it is dedicated to those styles derived of those of Indian descent. Pleasantly, she is surprised to learn that six of the classical dance styles offer both the levels of full-body control and footwork she seeks to add to her combat training, everything from controlled erratic movements to smooth practiced fluidity and even sharp quick spurts.

With referral from her prior academy, she is accepted as a student into the second one. She is just barely older than fourteen when she begins. Her schedule changes again in an attempt to learn as much as she possibly can. She barely sleeps passed this age, honoring both her ancestral training in combat arts, mixed with the teachings of those six Hindu dance styles. She wakes at what constitutes for dawn, stretches, and goes to the academy. She brings what she learns in the time she is there and works with her father to integrate it into her basic combat styles before going to sleep long after the Lumino Ore dims for the night.

She will do this continually until she is almost twenty years of age. By that point, she has turned her acts of physical nonSlinging warfare into an art.

While she still dances Persian for entertainment and for spreading the culture as is Babel's custom, she keeps the strong and disciplined Hindu dance to herself. The only way one sees it outside of her private practice sessions, which is rarely seen as it is, is if she is merging it into a brutally elegant slaughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I know a few people were upset with the events of the new version of Plummet, I decided to pull this old beast out of my Drafts on Tumblr to work on it and get it out. It was originally a headcanon, but it reads more like a second-person drabble, so it's kinda both.


	12. Consumption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That moment when Thaddius realizes he feels more than just malice, and it hits him like a train built on obsession.

A wisp of swirling ink in water, sapphires punctuating the gloom. Seen in peripheral, melded with the shadows cast by hallway niches. Resolute determination to remind that nothing resides in darkened embraces.

Imagery of a beast in woman skin hides within and without of sight, frequent and numerous until it engulfs consciousness and senses. Sight gives way to scent, disarmingly sweet and unsettlingly earthy. Scent gives way to touch, polished marble wrapped in the finest of silks. Gives way to the sound of calculated marching click, a taste reminiscent of brimstone on the lips.

Demon inspiring fires to burn hot, seen in sharp contoured lines of red, outlined in glittering gold of pride and bottomless black of neutral chaos. Warping border between shadow and light, contrast of refined ivory against that unbridled cloud of ink. Twist of hip, saunter in lofted step, control and defiance personified in haunting abyssal gaze.

Even in trying to set the defenses, to put up the walls, to block swimming vision out, it is difficult when haunting images are a part of the blood. The wolf waits, with devilish smile ready to devour the heart from the chest, with wavering hell's breath to cauterize so no other may obtain.

Unwittingly and pleasantly, the woman and her hellfire will consume and destroy all in her path.  
In the end, he lets it happen and gives himself willingly to the rapidly-devouring inferno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will eventually be a companion illustration to this one.
> 
> For a close friend of mine who is working on a big project based around the theme [title].
> 
> So have the concept 'script':  
> An abstract dialogue-less piece done to The Glitch Mob's song, How to be Eaten by a Woman, based around Thaddius's descent into feeling virtually anything other than his usual malice.
> 
> enjoy this snippet of industrev  
> sorry it's so short; the piece isn't very long in terms of writable material, mostly visual


	13. Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pure IndustRev intimacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will say this now:  
> I can't write smut.
> 
> I write this weird vague implied kind of stuff, and it's generally pretty short [not even a page]. But, enjoy it anyway, I suppose; Industrial Revolution needed SOMETHING for them.
> 
> Could be better, could be worse.

_She is a journey._

A new experience every time she returns, adorned with a new set of previously unfelt scars. He finds them in slow sweeps of his fingertips over flushed ivory flesh, warm against his chilled alabaster. Heated breath escapes, heavy, with small melodies composed for him, only him.

_Her taste lingers._

Trails of kisses leave her on his tongue, the taste of euphoria mixed with the undertone of some subtle spice. Scent of something rich and earthy permeates, hypnotizes.

Breath exhaled over neck and chest leaves paths of goosebumps. Every curve is memorized, every shift of muscle. Back arches, inky mane grasping at him as though trying to tether. Heartbeat quickens, he can feel it reverberate through her and into him; a metronome to set the pace. Delicate yet calloused fingers find purchase at his hips, his find hers in turn.

Fluid shift of momentum flowing from him into her, hands move upward for better leverage. He consumes her, melds and melts. A swirling energy shared between them, everything moving in perfect synchronization with one another. Tiny demands writ in air between her lips, his ears, wordless encouragements to continue. Bite at the finger within range, the tense begins across compacted frame beneath broad hand. Shudder begins, moves from her into him. Sync is broken, temporarily.

Kisses shared, tired and spent, reminders that their rendezvous are wanted, appreciated. Arms wrapped about the other, comforts taken into account. Fatigue takes control, drifting with her warmth curled against him.

He knows he will rue when she must leave, but still he holds for a glimpse of those bottomless blues when he wakes again.


	14. Microdrabble Compilation II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a Horseman feels before plunging into battle.
> 
> The IndustRev wedding.

**Ancestral Calling**

It feels like days told in tales.

Warmed metal is as flesh, a mechanical steed to take the place of armor-clad chargers described in texts older than the First Legacy. Clink and chime of plating, the timing to mimic elegant and elaborate movement of living war-stallions, gait shifting from trot to canter with the tiniest twist of the throttle.

Blood is roiling, fraught with adrenaline to the coming storm you will bring. Draw your weapons, raise the black veil of neutrality. Shift your mighty steed to a full gallop, drop the mask.

You are the culmination of the last Thirteen Legacies. You carry thirteen generations in you. Thirteen proud title-bearers, residing in you. You were born for this task, and only this remains as your infinite purpose.

May you assume such pride as you are born of the fight, and borne into the fight upon your roaring stallion, unknowing and unafraid of what your future may bear.

* * *

**Consequential**

_Dark blue_ , twinkling. Like her eyes.  
_Red_ , like passion, covering her head and shoulders in mock modesty.  
_Matronly_ , and yet still the maiden in so many years, light shuffling of silk to accentuate the click against the floor.  
A beautiful woman, a lovely wife-to-be. Strong and influential, even in the monolithic shadow of her future husband.

A hand extended, weathered, taken by one smaller without hesitation. A moment of quiet intimate giddiness shared between the parties before entrance proper, unseen and unheard by all but them, a single look and it is gone.

 _A swirl of the pens._  
_Witnesses sign, the presiding judge stamps and notarizes._  
 _An exchange of rings to seal it further._  
 _In and out before they know it._

Leaving together, arm in arm, strides matched with defining clicks of braces specially-crafted for the occasion and the strike of the cane to the floor. He calls her his wife, proper by legality, she calls him husband in turn. Before the return home, the first registered kiss is shared.

_Finality._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote these little blurbs a little while back and finally got around to posting them outside Tumblr. Woops.


	15. Microwave Slaughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those under the title of 'War' have never cooked, and never will cook.

_War cannot create_  
_It is against the creed of the element_  
 _War can only destroy…_

She stared at it, long and hard. Its smooth surfaces, the reflective face…

It was one of very few microwaving units in Babel, she knew. She also knew she had been advised against doing so much as touching it, by Papa.

Her lips pursed, little hands wringing the bottom hem of the tunic-shirt she wore. What was so bad about it? Mama used it all the time, but when she had asked her mother about it, she did not receive a straight answer. Mama was more content to mutter under her breath while she worked and only rarely paid her mind. Papa remained vague as a form of teaching self-control. And so, through general neglect toward her questions, she remained curious of the thing.

All she knew was it cooked food, and cooked it quickly, and that their family had one of very few units that worked in the cavern in the magnet. All her warnings had consisted of were ' _War does not enter a kitchen_ '.

This was probably not the best thing to tell a four-year-old, rebellious and full of iron-will determination.

She had already defied her superior by passing the thresholds into the magical food-room beyond; her mother was certainly not going to stop her from doing so. Her mind had already been made up, long before her blatant disobedience. She was going to find out ' _why_ '.

Mama had left the room already, sweeping with her tall and gangly grace through the halls and back upstairs, leaving her troublemaker-child alone in the kitchen. Staring at the weird appliance that 'nuked' food faster than heating the ovens. Her reflection in the tinted glass plate in the face stared back at her, the warped image taunting her. Her eyes narrowed at it, defiantly, her left hand reaching out to push a couple numbers on the keypad. Nothing happened. She felt triumphant, having beaten the microwave. Then, she pushed ' _Start_ '.

The explosion echoed throughout Babel like thunder, loud enough to procure shouts of alarm from the upper mines deeper in The Pit.

The mangled carcass of the microwave had landed with a smoking splash in the fountain, right in front of Papa as he made his way back up the front walk, a trail of wooden debris leading back to the burnt hole in the kitchen wall.

His gaze went from the dead appliance straight to the culprit, staring back at him with shocked terror. His own face showed only controlled anger.

She did the only thing a four-year-old could do at that point. She ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt given to me by a friend on Tumblr; War's first experiments with any form of cooking/appliance-using and why she doesn't.
> 
> I had to weaponize a microwave. That was all there was to it.
> 
> Thaddius MARRIES this destructive woman  
> His funeral  
> or rather; his kitchen's funeral


	16. Ascension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new era rises.

They had hoped it would be their parents to hand the masks to them, as is customary. Instead, it is chosen members of the Council, listening to the rites as read by the High Voice. In the event that the prior Legacy cannot pass the title properly, it is the contingency to have those of authority instate a new era of acting Horsemen.

The rites are read through completely, the masks passed from one set of hands to the other, placed over the new faces to hide who they are, a sacrifice to the title. They are no longer who they were before, a single entity in a new form. They exit the Council Hall to resounding cheering of the entirety of the cavern in the chasm.

The ignition to the old Warhorses has been handed to each, the roar of engines echoing off the magnet as they make their way out to let their jurisdiction and beyond know of their rise to their title. The herald has already been sent forth to bring news to those other systems along the Eastern Wall, to deliver the glad news of the new age to those stationed at the Northern Outpost. It does not stop a flood of excitement when the quartet of antique mechs rides through their caverns at point formation.

Seeing a new generation of Horsemen to carry the legacy is always biggest to those of the Northern Point. It means they stave off the attack from those of the Sirin Systems, and somewhere out in the Northern Wilds, passed the borders guarded night and day, they can feel the sharp golden glare of the Sirifolk.

It feels good to show a renewed guard to their long-standing enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short shit, but something in between the prompt challenge to tie me over. And get this image out of my head, the one that popped up as soon as Two Steps from Hell's dual-track for Amaria/Flight of the Silverbird popped up on my playlist.


	17. Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War is visited by her mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not often I put things at the beginning, but here it's a bit necessary, I think.
> 
> Something short and derp I thought up to break the monotony of checking through a butt-ton of maps gifted to me and the prompt challenge. I'll get back on that as soon as I'm done with the maps.  
> In the meantime, enjoy the ghost story. This is what I get for watching this week's Paranormal Witness…
> 
> also it kinda flops near the end and i kinda dropped the ball on thad, sorry

Whispering.

A faint murmur in the bedroom stirred her awake. For a moment, she thought it might have been Thaddius; though he was a sound sleeper, he did occasionally mutter under his breath during some nights. She turned her head to check on him, only to notice he was not there.

Ah yes, she had stumbled into the Citadel looking half-dead of exhaustion. While she didn't remember it, likely the hulking industrialist had put her to bed before returning to work. The jacket and mask had been removed, hung neatly nearby with an unexpectedly tidy nest of her usual belts, the door hinge-pin she used to keep her ebon hair under relative control resting on the bedside stand next to her. She didn't need to look to know the boots and the braces were on the floor next to her.

Thaddius' distinct absence solidified a certain feeling now, hearing wisping mutters without logical source setting hackles into raising. Something wasn't right, and concentrating on the voice to try to identify its owner only chilled the blood in her veins further. Her mane tightened its whorls and coils, seeming to grow in loft around her, reacting to its creator as its host reacted.

There were few moments in her life that she would admit feeling fear. Being War meant that fear was beaten out of the title-bearer at a very young age, accounting for normal circumstances were fear would be prominent.

Adelaide Heinricht had never been classified as a 'normal circumstance'.

A secondary sound started in beneath the whispers, a low thrum, familiar and no less sinister. It drew flashes of the plunge back to her waking memory from the abyss where she had tried to seal it away, the surreal swirling of inky black and the twisting metallic void. The singing magnet, the screech of the devil wearing the woman's face with its claws anchored in her.

" _y…mber…"_

There it was, the crackling murmur she had heard in drug-induced comas when she was confined to her bed, to the thick metal scaffolding placed about her lower legs to keep them as perfectly straight as possible. Her head snapped about, trying to find the source directly.

" _y…blame…i…t…ake…'ver…thing…"_ The subtle crooked outline hiding beneath one of the pillars in the corner of the room twitched, drawing her attention to it.

"Keep your hands to yourself." was hissed out, trying to maintain an air of calm. It didn't work as well as she hoped; there were tears welling in the undertone of her voice. She blinked, losing sight of the elusive apparition.

" _…s…lf…sh…bom'n…tion…"_

It sounded behind her, close to her left ear. The background tune played by the magnet's residual energy raised to an unbearable volume, a borderline scream overtaking the rasping and broken wheeze of a laugh.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, her breath elevated and hitched, eyes watering until a few tears managed their way to stain the sheets. Mutterings to try to calm herself and push away the horrific spectre turned instead to repetitions demanding it leave instead, growing in volume the more it was repeated. Then her ankles started to burn and ache.

She broke there, her hand darting out like an adder to grab the hinge-pin left on the nightstand, whirling about and brandishing it like a knife with a final loud roar of, " **Leave me alone**!"

The hand that caught her wrist was coarse but firm, and very real. "Well. I think this is the first time in almost two years you've threatened me with a weapon intending actual murder."

It took a moment for her shattered mind to register the familiar rumbling voice, warping sight through red and swollen eyes to sharpen enough to find Thaddius standing to one side, a look of subtle concern on his face. The acknowledgement to the industrialist's sudden presence caused her to relax in his grip finally, white-knuckled hand wielding the makeshift weapon loosening enough for him to remove it from her.

She made an attempt to apologize for it, and even though she concentrated on her native language to do it, it still stuttered. A calloused finger to her lips was enough to silence her, moving from there to try and whisk away the creeping wisps of her mane as it made its own attempts at overtaking her face and his intruding hand. Failing his battle against the inky tendrils, he instead opted to tilt her head so he could find her eyes.

The ankles had returned to their usual ambient throb, and she concentrated on rubbing them into relative submission once he released her hand. "You seem more than a bit shaken. Is everything alright?"

"J-j-j … Just un nachtmahr."

She finally found her voice, but in lieu of her upset, defaulted more or less to broken German. Thankfully, it sounded still close enough to the standard Slugterran-English dialects, Thaddius was able to pick up the general meanings.

"…I would call it more of a night-terror, the way you reacted."

There was a growl in his voice, something almost threatening. She vied instead to change the subject to avoid making him any more concerned than he actually was on the matter of her well-being; if he felt like there was any more threat in the area, he would be out for blood. And when he didn't find it in the Citadel? Would redirect his roiling anger elsewhere.

"Vhy are you here? Are you finished vorking already?"

His jade eyes hardened, glittered menacingly. Already, the tactic wasn't working.

"No. I was in a video-meeting with a field director when I thought I saw you out of the corner of my eye. I wouldn't have come to check, but how you looked, I thought it best to do so."

He wouldn't say it out loud, but the language spoke volumes. Thaddius had seen Adelaide and as a result of being shaken himself by the ghost, thought to check on the dead woman's daughter.


End file.
